Nearly four and a half years ago this nation experienced the two worst disasters of this past decade: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans’ federal flood. Today many consider them old news, if not history, but they still are present in the lives of those who survived them.
We must neither forget nor forgive how poorly BushCo responded to the disaster–and how it was so easy for the administration to keep New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region on the back burner as the area struggled to recover. And this wasn’t merely leaving New Orleans to die–it was the application of the “Shock Doctrine”–opening the city to the ravages of capitalist buzzards who gobbled up the good parts of New Orleans for development for the wealthy. And deliberately made it that less well-off disaster victims would find it difficult to return to New Orleans because of the lack of affordable housing.
The New Orleans flood didn’t have to happen–the levees should not have crumbled so easily. However, for many years they have been poorly maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers, and according to Harry Shearer, some of the mistakes that had previously been made in levee construction are now present in the “new, improved” system. Shearer also notes that a report to this effect has been sitting on President Obama’s desk since last June–but nothing has been done about it.
We need to pay attention to how the Obama Administration is handling this matter and others relating to the recovery of New Orleans and the rest of the Gulf Region. And demand that Obama keep the promises the below video shows him making.